Age of Offense - Part 2

Friday, March 31, 2023

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.  Proverbs 22:6

An “age” is an measure of humanity’s time.  If you add a modifier to the noun it tells you what kind of age it was.  The Stone-age, Bronze-age, and Iron-age are three successive periods of humankind’s development from the primal to more sophisticated eras of lifestyle.

On a more “local” level there is the age of a single human being, passing time in a microcosm (compared to antiquities).  First is the primal age spent in the womb, followed by the baby age, toddler, pre-teen, teen, young adult, middle, and old ages.  When you’re a pre-teen, undergoing the beginning stages of hormonal and bodily changes, it seems an eternity before you’ll get a driver’s license.  Time speeds up when you’re 75; every time you turn around it’s a new decade.

I have called our current dilemma the Age of Offense.  Every word or deed offends (at least) somebody.  Depending on your tribe (Millennial, Gen-X, Z, Boomer, or whatever epoch you occupy), the later the generational label, the more likely you’ll spend most of your days angry, stressed-out, or ready to kill.  The chart in yesterday’s devotion (part 1) depicted a glum indicator of the fast rise of K-12 mass shootings in America in the last decade.  

Personally, I can think of no other time when children have been under more stress, pushed to the limit.  The sense of hope, joy, and wonder seen in a child’s face is rarer now, than anxious despair or downright fear.  Children are abused by violence!

Scripture enjoins parents to train them up.  This is an imperative command.  Solomon says:  YOU train them.  He’s sounding the alarm to parents that they must engage with their kids.  That means you don’t leave it up to the guidance counsellor, or the preacher, or some babysitting device (phone, TV, et al).  You spend time with them. 

Solomon also says to train them in the way.  This phrase can refer to a specific path for them to follow, but it more likely refers to helping them find the path where they learn God’s way best.  Some children are introverted, they learn best by reading and observing.  Some are extroverts, they learn best by experiencing.  But one factor that’s true of all children is that they learn by YOUR example.  If you send them to church, they will eventually come to the conclusion that church is for children, and they will grow out of it.  The “bussing of children” to attend Sunday School in the 1950’s-90’s proved that.  We now have generations of adults  who believe they’ve outgrown worshipping God.  They were trained-up by lazy parents that were too busy to bring them to church, and those kids now are not departing from what they learned.

Parenting is not a one-size-fits-all discipline.  You must engage, spend time understanding who they are, and how they learn.  That’s a big project!  The five minutes before bedtime, reading them a story, will not accomplish that.  Frankly, it means putting your own time on hold to work with, study, talk to, play with, instruct, protect, celebrate, hold accountable, and encourage your children. 

I can hear the eyes rolling….but, please…if Susanna Wesley (who had 19 children) spent quality time with each of her children, you can manage your two, three or six kids.  It depends on your adult decision making about what’s important!

For You Today 

The mess of children and young people using guns to solve their insecure relationship with life is a problem that developed over many years of inept parenting.  It won’t go away in the time it takes to pass a new gun law.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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There are about 2,500 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper explore some of these:  Lapsed Atheists and Trained-Up

Title Image:  Pixabay.com  1 &  2    Images without citation are in public domain.

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

Age of Offense - Part 1

Thursday, March 30, 2023

Don’t fail to discipline your children.  The rod of punishment won’t kill them.  Proverbs 23:13

We live in an age of offense.  It has been legitimized to take-offense at any words or actions of another person or group, particularly those who don’t share your opinion.  Mass shootings in schools are prima facie evidence of just how far the Age of Offense has deepened into human culture in the 21^st century.  Nothing seems off the table when it comes to retaliating for supposed offenses.  

Monday’s shooting at a Christian school in Nashville marked the 89^th shooting in an American K-12 school in the three months of this year; that’s more than one-a-day, which puts us on pace for 378 shootings this year, far-surpassing last year’s 303[1].  This chart shows, in the last 11 years (2012-2023), annual mass K-12 shootings have increased by more than 15-fold (from 20 to 300 per year). 

While I was writing the above words     I received a text from my daughter in Florida asking for prayer for her boys, both in the same high school, on lockdown because of guns on campus.  It’s been an anxious 30 minutes, but the school is closed now, and boys are on the way home.  These events torture the hearts and minds of the families and communities involved, as well as the understanding of all who just want to live in peace.  The questions flow…why this? – where did it come from? – how do we stop it?

With those questions flooding my mind, I believe this deserves a wide-open conversation…not just in Washington over the weapon issues, or new laws, or even having armed guards, or (heaven-forbid), arming teachers.  I believe we need to openly discuss what has been too much back-burner for the churches.  I’m acquainted with some ministers who never address marriage and family issues from the pulpit, as they are too controversial.  That must end.  What good is gathering each week for just a rehash of the wonderful love of God, but never applying that love by helping families grow to be stronger disciples. 

Strong disciples of Jesus make excellent parents.  Excellent parents are not afraid to set boundaries that keep their kids safe and sane.  Kids that grow up with loving parents, who are Biblically-based, lavishing genuine love on tender-age children (unselfishly doing the best for their children), become well-balanced kids, who grow up to be loving and unselfish, not taking offense at every little thing. 

Now, please don’t get the idea that I’m proposing a one-size-fits-all model of parenting that is guaranteed to turn kids out like you want them.  I am talking about the direction parenting must take to lead children to the way God wants for them. 

Over the next several days we will talk about the home, and how God expects us to raise AND discipline our children, as God has instructed.  Anyone can disagree with me on this; I do not claim to be a prophet or have all the answers.  What I do claim is that God’s Word does.

For You Today 

If you doubt the Word of God has a better way than what has been taught in schools and in the violent, perverted, media-driven social-engineering of the last several decades, stay-tuned…you ain’t see nothin’ yet!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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There are about 2,500 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper explore some of these:  How Was Your Weekend? and Following the Leader

Title Image:  Pixabay.com  1 &  2    Images without citation are in public domain.

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©  

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[1] K-12 School Shooting Database

Backing God into a Corner

Wednesday, March 29, 2023

That same day Jesus was approached by some Sadducees—religious leaders who say there is no resurrection from the dead.  They posed this question:  “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies without children, his brother should marry the widow and have a child who will carry on the brother’s name.  Well, suppose there were seven brothers.  The oldest one married and then died without children, so his brother married the widow.  But the second brother also died, and the third brother married her.  This continued with all seven of them.  Last of all, the woman also died.  So tell us, whose wife will she be in the resurrection?  For all seven were married to her.”  Jesus replied, “Your mistake is that you don’t know the Scriptures, and you don’t know the power of God.  For when the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage.  In this respect they will be like the angels in heaven.  “But now, as to whether there will be a resurrection of the dead—haven’t you ever read about this in the Scriptures?  Long after Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had died, God said, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ So he is the God of the living, not the dead.”  When the crowds heard him, they were astounded at his teaching.  

Matthew 22:23-33

Stories abound of prosecutors asking unanswerable questions, designed to trap, rather than get at truth.  A detective investigating the character of a husband asks:  Tell me, sir, have you stopped beating your wife?  A “yes” or a “no” makes the man an abuser. 

A District Attorney, with the defendant on the witness stand, questions:  Do you have any of the stolen money left?

To say the least, the Sadducees did not ask an honest question.  Sadducees were of the opinion an afterlife was impossible.  Their riddle of a seven-times married, seven-times widowed woman was merely a narrowminded attempt to back Jesus into a corner.  They wanted to set him up for humiliation.  No matter what answer he gave about whose wife she would be in the resurrection, the debate that followed would be on their terms, fueled by their hard-headed death-doctrine, and even harder hearts. 

What the Sadducees hadn’t counted on was Jesus understanding their hard hearts, and turning the discussion away from a debate.  Jesus pointed to their lack of understanding the Scripture, including the Moses passages they had quoted.  It was all about resurrection and life.  Their belief was flawed; JHWH is the God of the living…death is an enemy.  Their concept of God’s power was flawed.  In short, he told them:  In a war of wits, you have come to this battle unarmed. 

Many have jumped into the battle that way, thinking they knew better.  The consummate example is Satan, the enemy, arch-deceiver, and defeated accuser of humankind.  The first question asked in human history was asked by Lucifer, directed to Eve, intended to manipulate and destroy God’s creation.  He asked about that tree:  Has God REALLY said you would die?

In the most ancient of Scripture’s books (Job), Satan prances into the throne room of God and accuses Job of only being obedient because God blesses him.  It is a challenge…Job is the battleground.  Satan plays the Sadducee.  In the end, the serpent is consigned to eat dust for eternity.  Game over!

For You Today 

Getting angry at God is a response that happens in humans, sometimes born of a tragic loss, or misguided decision to have one’s own way with life.  But know this:  Whoever wants to back God into a corner is still surrounded by His love!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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There are about 2,500 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper explore some of these:  Seven Husbands for One Bride? and Seven Times a Fool

Title Image: Pixabay.com    Images without citation are in public domain.

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

Elisha's Faith

Tuesday, March 28, 2023

One day when her child was older, he went out to help his father, who was working with the harvesters.  Suddenly he cried out, “My head hurts! My head hurts!”  His father said to one of the servants, “Carry him home to his mother.”  So the servant took him home, and his mother held him on her lap. But around noontime he died.  She carried him up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, then shut the door and left him there.  She sent a message to her husband: “Send one of the servants and a donkey so that I can hurry to the man of God and come right back.”  “Why go today?” he asked.  “It is neither a new moon festival nor a Sabbath.”  But she said, “It will be all right.”  So she saddled the donkey and said to the servant, “Hurry!  Don’t slow down unless I tell you to.”  ….  So Elisha returned with her.  Gehazi hurried on ahead and laid the staff on the child’s face, but nothing happened.  There was no sign of life. He returned to meet Elisha and told him, “The child is still dead.”  When Elisha arrived, the child was indeed dead, lying there on the prophet’s bed.  He went in alone and shut the door behind him and prayed to the Lord.  Then he lay down on the child’s body, placing his mouth on the child’s mouth, his eyes on the child’s eyes, and his hands on the child’s hands. And as he stretched out on him, the child’s body began to grow warm again!  Elisha got up, walked back and forth across the room once, and then stretched himself out again on the child.  This time the boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes!  Then Elisha summoned Gehazi. “Call the child’s mother!” he said.  And when she came in, Elisha said, “Here, take your son!”  She fell at his feet and bowed before him, overwhelmed with gratitude. Then she took her son in her arms and carried him downstairs.  2 Kings 4:18-24, 30b-37

The faith of Elisha has always fascinated me.  The test of a true prophet is 100% accuracy.  There was no “wiggle-room” for that.  The penalty for prophetic failure was death.  Speaking or acting in the name of God, and then having your words or deeds fizzle-out, was a mark that you were a false prophet; it got you a death warrant.

It seemed Elisha’s faith was far beyond worrying about what others might think of him or his words and deeds.  For Elisha it was all about serving the God who had called him to be a prophet.  Laying face-down on the child, with mouth, nose, hands, and eyes all identifying with the boy, Elisha was (once-again) accepting the risk of being a prophet.  This boy would raise to life, or Elisha would join him in death.  This was no time for unanswered prayer!

For You Today 

In a day when, for most of this world’s culture, even the pretense of Godliness has been tossed in the recycle bin, it’s especially difficult to find faith like Elisha’s, big enough to trust God, no matter what this world’s fads demand.

Despite that, the offer from Heaven still stands:

Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land.       2 Chronicles 7:14

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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There are about 2,500 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper explore some of these:  Big Faith and Jailbreak!

Title Image: Elisha raises Son, via Wikimedia Commons    Images without citation are in public domain.

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

A Living Sacrifice

Monday, March 27, 2023

On the first day of the week, we gathered with the local believers to share in the Lord’s Supper.  Paul was preaching to them, and since he was leaving the next day, he kept talking until midnight.  The upstairs room where we met was lighted with many flickering lamps.  As Paul spoke on and on, a young man named Eutychus, sitting on the windowsill, became very drowsy.  Finally, he fell sound asleep and dropped three stories to his death below.  Paul went down, bent over him, and took him into his arms.  “Don’t worry,” he said, “he’s alive!”  Then they all went back upstairs, shared in the Lord’s Supper, and  ate together. Paul continued talking to them until dawn, and then he left.  Meanwhile, the young man was taken home alive and well, and everyone was greatly relieved.  Acts 20:7-12

There’s an old story about faith that many preachers (this one included) have used in a sermon to illustrate the dangers of an incomplete commitment, a faith that falls short of full surrender to Christ.  It was at a regular Sunday morning worship that the pastor’s sermon was interrupted by a commotion coming from the back pew.  It seems brother Anse had fallen out of the pew, and landed on his posterior with a thud that shook the entire building.  The Pastor rushed to the back of the church and helped old Anse back onto his seat.  Are you alright, brother? asked the preacher.  Yep…I guess so, answered the old Deacon.  The preacher asked:  Well how’d it happen that you fell out th’ pew?  Old Anse thought just a moment then replied:  Well, I’m a-guessin’ I jus’ never got all the way in that seat in the first place.

I’ve heard it preached that was Eutychus’ problem too.  Some (including most preachers and congregations) might blame it on Paul’s long sermon…the drone factor.  Scripture says there were a lot of candles burning in the upper room where Paul preached; lots of heat.  The young man got close enough to get warm, but not close enough to get uncomfortably hot!  Fire will burn and motivate you; not getting close enough for the burning experience will make you sleepy.  Add sitting in an open third-story window, and you’ve got a perfect storm for disaster.

So what’s the point?  Well, I do believe Paul remembered Eutychus, and included his sleeping-in-church faux pas when he wrote to the believers at Rome:

And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you.  Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable.  This is truly the way to worship him.  Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.  Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.  

Romans 12:1-2

For You Today 

Giving yourself to God as a holy sacrifice is a matter of willingly climbing up on the altar for whatever God wants.  It doesn’t mean being willing to be comfortably near the fire; it means submitting to the fire for the glory of God.  You cannot expect transformation if you’re only close enough to let the warmth put you to sleep.  You’ll wind up like Brother Anse...on the faith floor!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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There are about 2,500 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper explore some of these:  Eutychus and The Long Sermon

Title Image: Rijksmuseum, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons    Images without citation are in public domain.

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

Horse and Cart Issues

Friday, March 24, 2023

“Son of man, give your people this message:  The righteous behavior of righteous people will not save them if they turn to sin, nor will the wicked behavior of wicked people destroy them if they repent and turn from their sins.  When I tell righteous people that they will live, but then they sin, expecting their past righteousness to save them, then none of their righteous acts will be remembered.  I will destroy them for their sins.  And suppose I tell some wicked people that they will surely die, but then they turn from their sins and do what is just and right.  For instance, they might give back a debtor’s security, return what they have stolen, and obey my life-giving laws, no longer doing what is evil.  If they do this, then they will surely live and not die.  None of their past sins will be brought up again, for they have done what is just and right, and they will surely live.  Ezekiel 33:12-16

Similar to the horse and cart, getting them in the right order, is the chicken and egg matter; which came first?  The horse and cart is a sight-gag; you only have to look at it, and you know (if you have a little horse sense) the horse and cart are out of order…it has no destination other than where they’re currently standing. 

The chicken and egg conundrum can be much more of a brain scrambler.  If the chicken is first, what egg did it come from?  If the egg is first, what chicken laid it?  It’s a little like trying to imagine nothingness.  If you let your brain think nothing exists, it means you no longer exist.  But if that’s so, space itself is something, even if nothing is in it.  And on, and on, until you go mad.

One other brain teaser:  If God can do everything, can God make a rock bigger than He can lift?  Sorry…I know that one hurts your brain when you spend more than a minute on the possibilities and implications of either “yes” or “no”.

So, what does this have to do with Ezekiel’s message about righteous people who sin, and sinners who repent?  Everything that is holy!  God gave this message to straighten-out for our minds where the cart belongs, and where the horse belongs when it comes to being right with Him.  It has to do with the chicken/egg, horse/cart, and big rock questions.  There is an extremely flawed train of thought that takes a Biblical image of God’s judgment, such as the scale God uses to measure our life.  That is Biblically-accurate, God is a judge of kings and paupers alike.  Daniel, interpreting the dream of King Belshazzar, told him God said:

…you have been weighed on the balances and have not measured up.  Daniel 5:27

But we humans sometimes take images like that too far.  The faulty-thinking happens when people carry this to a conclusion that God never said.  That faulty thinking is that God measures the good we have done against the bad we have done, and if the good outweighs the bad, we’re ok for Heaven; if it tips the scale the other way, we’re toast…bound for the fires.

Cutting to the chase before my time runs out today, all this simply means is God expects us to fear, or reverence Him by our heart-response and our daily living.  We are not capable of doing enough good stuff to outweigh the smallest sin.  That whole thing was settled on the cross by the blood of Jesus Christ.

For You Today 

If those weighty, philosophical, and metaphysical chicken and egg/horse and cart riddles fascinate you, go ahead and work on some answers.  Just make sure you get the horse of grace, put in front of the cart of forgiveness and salvation.  You could win a Pulitzer for writing a definitive book proving nothingness exists…but it would not get you one millimeter closer to He who IS life.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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There are about 2,500 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper explore some of these:  The Lord's Consuming Fire and What Calls from Below

Title Image: Social Trendspotter    Images without citation are in public domain.

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©